“I don’t want it. I never want to go back there again,” he whispered.
“You don’t have to,” Abe told him. “The police are still searching the house, but once they’ve released it, you’re free to sell it. Buy a new house. You’ll get a pretty penny out of that house and property. You’ll be set for a long time.”
“What if he comes back?” Ben murmured.
“Do you think he will?” Orla asked.
“No, I think he’s probably dead. I think the brotherhood killed him,” Be admitted.
“Man, I want to know more about this brotherhood,” Abe muttered, “I searched Crow’s files, and didn’t find so much as hint of this group.”
“In the meantime,” Orla cut in. “Our roommate, Jayne, is moving to Australia. We’ve got a vacancy in the house, and I thought you might like to stay with us for a while.”
Ben looked away. When he spoke, his lower lip quivered.
“Are you sure?” he asked.
“I’m way more than that.” Orla smiled.
Hazel
Calvin had set up a long table in Hazel’s garden. A silver and pink tablecloth, sewed by Orla, lay over the top. From the flowering trees, Hazel had hung white string lights.
Everyone brought a dish to pass. Liz supplied garlic rolls. Fiona had made a shepherd’s pie and brown bread. Abe brought freshly baked pies from Grady’s Diner. Even Orla, the guest of honor, made zucchini potato pancakes.
Hazel had set the table with her mother’s Aynsley Wilton bone china, piped in blue and gold. Her mother had cherished the dinnerware. Every Friday night, in the year before her mother’s death, Hazel served she and her mother dinner on the set. In her final days, weak and ravaged by the cancer, Hazel’s mom had dropped one of the saucers and shattered it. Her mother had sobbed for hours. Hazel had wrapped and boxed the dinnerware, and had not taken it out again until just this morning, when she realized her mother would want nothing more than to see Hazel’s friends laughing and eating from her beautiful plates.
As the sun set, her guests arrived.
“Not the head of the table,” Orla said, when Hazel pulled out a chair. “Please.”
Hazel saw the trepidation in her friend’s eyes and pulled her close.
“I didn’t think, I’m sorry,” Hazel whispered, kissing her on the cheek.
Orla leaned her head on Hazel’s shoulder and sighed.
“That’s not true at all,” Orla told her. “Look at all this. You dreamed it, and here we are.”
Orla sat in chair next to Abe. He leaned over and kissed her cheek, and Hazel watched them, the way their eyes lingered on one another’s.
Liz and Jerry took chairs near Pat and Fiona. Liz complimented Fiona on her lovely green dress, which she’d sewn herself. Orla, too, wore the beautiful red and orange dress she’d made just days before her abduction. The backless dress revealed a large yellowish bruise fading from her right shoulder.
When Ben, the shy, dark-haired man who’d freed Orla from the asylum, appeared, Orla jumped from her chair and ran across the lawn. She threw her arms around him, and they toppled over backwards. He blushed red, but Hazel saw he was pleased.
When he stepped to the table, he held up a bag of cherries.
“I stopped at a fruit stand. I don’t have a kitchen and I don’t really know how to cook…” He trailed off, and Orla took the cherries, opening the bag and inhaling.
“I love cherries,” she told him. “And when you move in, you can do all the cooking you want. Let me grab a bowl.” She disappeared into the house.
Ben started to sit next to Calvin, but Patrick stood and pulled him roughly away from the table. Hazel cringed, thinking Pat might hit the young man. Instead, he gave him a hug, patting Ben’s back.
“Thank you. We haven’t had a chance to tell you, but thank you for saving our daughter.”
Ben nodded, letting his hair fall over his face, and sat quickly down.
They ate, drank wine, and shed more than a few tears. Hazel started to clear the plates from the table as Calvin sliced the pies.
As she stepped onto the porch, she glanced toward the road and saw an ethereal woman, with long blonde hair, walking up the driveway. Hazel’s mouth fell open and she froze, wondering if she stared at a ghost, but as the woman drew closer, Hazel recognized her.
“Hattie,” she whispered.
The woman saw her and smiled. She wore a long, crocheted white dress, her hair flowing behind her.
“Hi,” Hazel said breathlessly as she met her in the driveway.
Hattie gazed at the table of people.
“What a beautiful party,” Hattie murmured.
“Thank you,” Hazel told her, wondering why the woman had come.
“I’ve had a visitor the last few nights,” Hattie said, gazing deeply into Hazel’s eyes. “She would like to say goodbye to her mother.”
Hazel stared at her, puzzled, and then awareness took hold.
“Susan?” she whispered.
Hattie nodded.
“May I borrow Liz Miner?”
Hazel nodded and walked back to the table.
She rested a hand on Liz’s shoulder and leaned down.
“Liz, there’s someone here to see you.”
Liz looked up, confused, and followed Hazel’s gaze to the woman in the driveway.
Without asking, she stood and followed Hazel to Hattie.
“Liz,” Hattie said, taking Liz’s hand and holding it for a long moment. “I’ve heard so much about you.”
“You have?” Liz cast a surprised glance at Hazel.
“Walk with me,” Hattie said, moving off down the driveway.
Hazel nodded at Liz, who turned and followed Hattie into the dark street.
Liz
Liz watched the woman who moved with such lightness, she appeared to float.
“How do you know me?” Liz asked.
Hattie stopped, tilted her head and nodded.
“This way,” she told Liz, gesturing to a white archway that opened into a small park. Liz followed the woman, who stopped near a flowering apple tree.
“I’ll give you a few minutes,” Hattie said.
Liz started to argue and then froze, when another voice emerged from a shadow behind the tree.
“Mom.” Susie’s voice drifted from the darkness. She sounded far away, as if she called from the bottom of a well.
As Liz gazed into the purple twilight, her daughter materialized behind the white blossoms.
For a few terrible, wonderful seconds, Susan stood before her, solid and real, glowing as if she basked in the midday sun.
“Susan,” Liz gasped, stepping forward, but her daughter faded.
For an instant the shadow was only darkness, and then her child, her green-eyed beauty, appeared once more.
“I’ll be waiting for you, Mom. It’s time to live again.” Susan’s voice emerged from her trembling shape. “I love you.”
And then, Susan Miner disappeared for the last time.
Epilogue
Six Months Later
Abe
Abe’s mom stood in the baggage claim of the Spokane International Airport, waving excitedly when she spotted him. She wore an eye-popping yellow turtleneck beneath a red sweater vest and matching red pants. Her hair, long the last time Abe had seen her years earlier, was now cropped above her ears.
“Abraham,” she gushed, grabbing and hugging him, pulling away to look into his face and then crushing him against her.